The audit contains the following findings with regard to financial oversight of the City of Evansville during 2011:
1. Fund balances were not reconciled to bank balances for the entire year of 2011. As of July 31, 2012 City officials were still unable to reconcile the ledger to the bank account. (Indiana laws require monthly reconciliation)
2. A materially correct annual report for 2011 was not presented for audit.
3. The City’s financial system was not able to produce basic reports.
4. The auditors were not able to obtain records for which the detail matched the control for 2011.
5. The controls over the receipting, disbursing, recording and accounting of the financial activities due to weakness in input and oversight.
6. Contracts with the City of Evansville and SMG have not been audited since 2005 (7 years).
7. The City of Evansville filed their annual report past the dealine to do so.
8. Utility funds were co-mingled with general funds as were parking fees and a buy money fund. These funds are required to be kept separate.
9. Substantially all of the accounts of the City of Evansville (over 20) were overdrawn at some time in 2011. This is forbidden yet the same thing was cited in the 2010 SBA audit.
10. In the section of the audit of the use of federal funds, a Disclaimer was noted as were material weaknesses in internal controls and non-compliance of financial statements.
Link to SBOA Audit
http://media.courierpress.com/media/static/gh56ftfg2.pdf
This is a developing story;
It’s an hour past the report release and former Controller Jenny Collins still has her fake 81K a year job as the CFO (City Failure Officer) of the Utilities…
I am not sure how the Evansville Courier&Press was able to get a copy of this audit when the SBOA has not posted it to their “recently released audits” section of their website yet.
I will not call this one official until I can download it from the SBOA website.
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They may have gone in person with cash to get it copied.
The more likely scenario is they sent a copy to the C&P on a Friday, before they post it on the following Monday, which gives the C&P time spin it and attempt to soften the impact of the reported findings.
C&P will be in full damage control mode this weekend.
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Yea since I saw this I have been wondering what Ethridge and Co are going to cook up now to try to justify this. One thing’s for sure, Winnecke and crew are making the C&P look like complete idiots.
It is likely someone close to the proceedings in a relatively high local office used their position to procure an advance copy and sent it to their bosom buddies at C&P so they can try to control the story as much as possible.
Someone’s head will roll for this. A scapegoat will be needed before all is said and done. Question is…who? And will their blood be enough to satisfy the gods of bad government?
New “motto” of the City of Evansville-“If you fu– up you move up”!
The new financial dream team-Jenny Collins, Mayor Winnenke and Russ Lloyd, Jr.
Actually the motto is “let everything slide for your cronies”. Why has Winnecke not called out Weinzapfel for this? Do he really owe him that much? Today everyone knows what kind of a cluster##@$ the Weinzapfel Administration was when it came to money.
Somewhere behind all of this is a scheme of some kind that greased someone for looking the other way. I hope John Friend will take the bull by the horns and expose those responsible for this damage.
Even tin pot banana republics know how to count but Evansville doesn’t. Not only that but the fools that did this will be rewarded.
I am truly embarrassed to be from Evansville.
Thanks to the CCO for alerting us about the possible financial bumbling of past Mayor Johnny Taxapple and Mayor Winnenke of city accounting records. Looks like we have another bookkeeping coverup concerning Water and Sewer department to be announced by the State Board of Accounts in near future.
Remember the Homestead Tax Credit fiasco involving the past Mayor and Winnenke years back? Looks like history repeats itself!
Shame on you Courier and Press, no guts no glory!
The SBA Aduit findings has caused a great deal of excitement at the Civic Center today.
They are waiting to see if the Mayor has the political guts to fire past City Controller Jenny Collins. They also are waiting to see what is going to happen to current City Controller, Russ Lloyd, Jr. concerning his role in keeping this information from City Council and taxpayers!
Maybe we we have a one term Mayor and one term Controller in the making!
Now you know why the large marjority city and county employees working at the Civic Center consider CCO their newspaper of choice! Thanks CCO for bringing this issue to the public attention.
I love this city; it is so entertaining. Entertaining because WE will not do anything about it and that is what these incompetents count on.
The only thing that would make it better would be if I was profiting from it also. Then I could be laughing too.
The justification for increasing salaries for these glorified bean counters was to attract and retain qualified employees. Really?
Rumpelbeancounter is using Harding, Shamanski & Co. to reconcile the accounts. Jennybeancounter is using Umbach & Associates to reconcile the accounts in the water deparment. The beans still do not match the books. When does it ever end?
City Council should demand an independent audit.
I’d fire ’em all.
It may be wise for one of the citizens of the fine city of Evansville to familiarize themselves with the State Board of Accounts Manual section 51-4 if it is indeed the case that Rumpel and Jenny are contracting independent audits. You see, you have every right to expect them to pay such costs personally. And if you read the remaining sections of the manual, you will find that it does not require any malfeasance to be demonstrated or necessarily even suspected. I copied and pasted the key section below and you can see all it requires is poor record keeping or inadequate bookkeeping practices. Seem with the SBOA report one wouldn’t have any difficulty in demonstrating that.
“51-4
Audit Costs
Audit costs incurred because of theft and shortage may be the personal obligation of the responsible
official or employee.
Audit costs or other costs incurred because of poor records, nonexistent records or other inadequate
bookkeeping practices may be the personal obligation of the responsible official or employee of the governmental
unit.
Any outside audit costs paid, not authorized by statute, may be considered a duplication of service and
an unnecessary expense. These payments may be the personal obligation of the responsible official or
employee.”
Fat chance of that ever happening!
Look at th freqyent use of MAY in your citation. That is a weasel word for “forget it.”
It would appear the city has set up a fall guy for the accounting snafu, it will be blamed and is being blamed on the computer software…
Lets face it we all have computer problems from time to time, it is and will be an indefensible scapegoat for the mistakes….trail covered, no harm no foul, life goes on in River City, everyone keeps their jobs, gets raises, and avoids a prison term.
The question that should be asked is this just a case of incompetency or was something being hidden? Could this be the smoking gun that everyone feared Rick Davis would uncover if elected, is there a active coverup going on? or just mass stupidity?
JMHO
I think this is just one of the many smoking guns laying around.
Whoever(s) decided to turn off the old software before the new one was proven needs to be fired immediately. If it was a group decision then the Mayor should have the balls to fire them all. That won’t happen IF they know some real serious stuff on the ex Mayor. Winnecke will protect his master (Weinzapfel) at all costs.
I think there is definitely think there is some crime behind all of this. It is too stupid to happen without personal gain for someone. Check the political donor records for every elected official even close to this nonsense.
I like conspiracies….guess most folks do to a point, it just seems odd that so much incompetency could be concentrated in our local government, I guess it could all be true….people do stupid things, but the fact that the books were not reconciled for a whole year when it is a monthly duty to do so, and then the person who is responsible for the reconciliation was rewarded with a new job and a fat raise.
I do believe the in the term “stupid is as stupid does” but this kinda’ fly’s in the face of just sheer stupidity, something else is going on at least it appears that way. 🙁
JMHO
I agree. This is too stupid to be real. This was intentional by someone for some reason. Will the powers that be even have the nerve to try to look for it.
Is it Arvay? Is it Jenny? Is it Weinzapfel? Who had something to gain from this? A first year accounting student would have known better.
The other disturbing thing is that Russ Lloyd must have known since February if he tried to reconcile the January books and kept silent.
John Friend was the money man on council during this. Did he have a clue or was he among the oblivious enablers too?
I can state as fact an observation that Mr. Weinzapfel rushed through the back door of Mr. Friend’s office one time while I was at a meeting there. It appeared to be an unplanned meeting or that Mr. Friend was not expecting the Mayor to show up at that time. I don’t know the extent to which it is common or uncommon for the Mayor to visit the private businesses of council members for unannounced, non-public meetings. It did seem that the two were on very pleasant terms and that, while unexpected at the specific time, did not project any indications of such an event being unusual.
I took this situation to suggest that it is not unusual for a mayor and council person from the same political party to have complete and frequent communication of the operations of city government. On the other hand, I guess it could have been the same type of situation which was behind the scenes for the Homestead Credit issue.
Cui bono?
That is always the first question one should ask. The second being: If someone’s actions fly in the face of reason and common sense, and if we can provide evidence that person is of sound mind, then doesn’t it follow that his actions tell of some underlying force that cannot be seen?
To draw a parallel, when light from a distant star is bent, or the star appears to wobble over time, we can reasonably conclude some unseen body is acting upon that star to cause it to wobble. It could be a dark planet or a black hole, but something is there we cannot see.
I’m sure they will try and blame it on the software but that will only get them so far. How does that explain things like SMG not being audited for 7 years?
Heck, I am numb over this one. We have all seen utter incompetence in government before but this takes the cake. I can not even imagine how anyone thought this was okay. When this all sinks in there may be people in the streets demanding answers.
This was not a comprehensive audit, and I fear this one might be the smoke screen that they believe will halt any further audits of the Weinzapfel years.
I certainly hope that is not the case, as no one, to date, has unwound any of Weinzapfels multimillion dollar contracts in order to see where all the money went.
Rule 1. Follow the money
Rule 2. See rule 1.
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Maybe Linda Durham might get some company
The C&P aricle states that they now have reconciled the 2011 accounts and have requested a re-do on the audit, but they can’t guarantee that it will take place due to the auditors workload. They probably know it won’t happen and therefore they got away with whatever they were hiding (the true cost of the Ford Center would be my top guess).
Among other things…
Classic Administrators Smoke and Mirror play by previous Administration…. “computer messed it up, don’t worry we know what we are doing” …. I would not hold my breathe on Councilman Friend’s ability to get to the bottom of this fraud…. if he were really a threat, they would not have put him back on council… what we need to do is be diligent about watching the early voting centers for graveyard voters….
Page 39:
Indiana Code 5-13-6-1(e) states:
“All local investment officers shall reconcile at least monthly the balance of public funds, as disclosed by the records of the local officers, with the balance statements provided by the respective depositories.”
At all times, the manual and/or computerized records, subsidiary records, subsidiary ledgers, control ledger, and reconciled bank balance should agree.
If the reconciled bank balance is less than the subsidiary or control ledgers, then the responsible official or employee may be held personally responsible for the amount needed to balance the fund. (Accounting and Uniform Compliance Guidelines Manual for Cities and Towns, Chapter 7)
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Russell Lloyd Jr. and John Friend are in deep doo doo.
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Not they aren’t…It’s the system’s fault, remember? Heard the short certified Beancounter say that he’s going out and getting his own audit because he disagrees with the State Board’s findings. Hope he knows that Indiana Code states that he’ll be personally liable for it. CPA’s to take on a mess that big would cost at least $100,000, probably more like $200,000
If some of you remember, buy money was a big county issue back in 98/99. The sheriff at that time was found to be keeping the buy money for personal use. Now that’s a verifiable fact. The commissioners order him to return the money, which he did, all $63,000 but they could only find $59,000 missing. Maybe we’ve always had an accounting problem.
Out of Adjectives,—got to use a Noun on this one,–
CROOKS!
It’s going to be ok guys. We’re going to get out our big 128 pack of crayola crowns and add a page 13 that will make all accounts balance out.
Love it! LOL
CEO of the software company:
http://www.tylertech.com/about-us/leadership/john-marr-jr
He has made 3 personal sales of TYL stock since Nov. of last year for a total of about $10.million.
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I said a long time ago that we need intervention from Indy, if they can find us. Drive south Indy. When you smell the sewers you will find the rats.
C&P is spinning this like it’s no big deal. Blame the software. Blame the fact that the former Deputy Controller was smart enough to jump ship a few months after the conversion.
The fact is this. The Controller’s Office is and has been a joke for years. If Unification passes, they will be in charge of County finances too. Less than one percent of audits get a disclaimer. The C&P failed to mention that important fact!
Meanwhile, Jenny Collins gets to keep her newly created 81K a year job even though she is responsible for the 2011 mess in the Controller’s Office. I hope that they saved the receipt for the software package because those idiots obviously don’t understand it!
You are so right. C&P has a Sunday edition which doesn’t mention this and has lead stories on how great consolidation will be and how wonderful Johnny’s stadium is. If there was any question about how the media is controlled rather than operating as an independent news reporting organization today’s paper seals it.
Might I suggest that the only thing that is going to get back our local government is political action by the people. Where is the Tea Party? Where is the Occupy movement? Let’s get an active protest of this local government going viral. Let’s get people on the Civic Center entryway with signs and bullhorns. Where is the flash mob crowd when the time to act is immediate. This transitivity is not corrected and yet you let the same actors stand forward blaming computers as if machines run things or denying that the problem still exists. The time to act is NOW!
The CP bears as much responsibility for Weinzapfel and Cronies getting by with this bullcrap as the ones that did this are. Even today, the CP annoints Weinzapfel as a visionary as his successors muster the abacus and the box of receipts to try and balance the City’s books. The CP is blinder than an Obama supporter all juiced up with teleprompted propaganda.
Did the C&P report that this administration begged to the Governor to not release this audit report? Some transparency. The Board of Accounts reported the facts as they are trained to as trained auditing professionals and they didn’t like what they told them. This and the last administration won’t admin that they screwed up but aren’t hesitating to point their fingers at “software” and the auditors.
Enough commenting on a website. Action and news coverage will come from taking the steps with bullhorn and a crowd of angry residents.
I’ve found out, security will remove you if you get too close to the entryway of the Civic Center, even if you’re exercising free speech. It would have to take place out on the sidewalk.
If you guys are really mad, write a letter to the CCO editor outlining your grievances and send a press release to every other news agency in town alerting them to the coming protest. It needs to be well written and succinct. It needs to say in as few words as possible “This is news in the making.” Name a definite time and place for the protest and identify any protest organizers who will act as spokesmen for the press. Hit Facebook, send emails to your groups, etc.
It doesn’t take much to stage a protest. The only art is in controlling the message of the protest.
C&P full of Drivel and only fit for a Birdcage!
They have reach the level of Contemptable!
—-and seem to revel in it!
Where would the Truth be found if not for the CCO!!
Embarrasing. Not surprising when you think of all the other underhanded tactics employed by our local leadership (or lack of leadership that has been replaced with self-interest)
If the software is at fault sue for a total refund and buy something that will fulfill the requirements of the law. I personally don’t believe that is the total problem, just a smoke screen to hide fund juggling. WHOEVER was in charge should have done this month 1, not month 21. I don’t think there is a large enough room to permit all the voters to attend. A nice nite on the civic center steps with tv and lots of lights, preferably on a Thursday so everyone could go to the FOP afterward for the CORE meeting. Donate 1% of what this has cost your tax bill to core 2012, to stop the reorganization.
The software has worked in many other cities. Here it does nothing. This looks like a deliberate attempt to cover the tracks of spending to me. Of course it could just be the fact that the Weinzapfel Administration put a bunch of stooges in charge that just could not do the job.
Is it true the person who skated out of town to Virginia Beach is not being mentioned. who was in charge of the failed IT conversion, who was leading a dirty deal with Johnson Controls, who had a cushy contract with a buddy for “IT Services”? All of these come down to one name and it’s is MATT ARVEY. The Graveyard of Skeletons are all pointing his way. That is who needs investigated!!!
While I do agree that Arvey shares some of the blame, bottom line is if a albatross is to be hung around anyone’s neck it should be ex-Mayor Weinzapfel neck, he was in command of this ship wreck and the entire crew including all the hapless trash cans that got in his way. 🙂
JMHO
By Aaron Applegate
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 14, 2012
VIRGINIA BEACH
The city has hired a new chief information officer to oversee the Department of Communications and Information Technology.
Matthew Arvay, the former chief information officer for Evansville, Ind., and a nearby county, is scheduled to start in Virginia Beach on Sept. 1, a city news release said.
He will replace Gwen Cowart, who retired in December. The department has 178 employees and a nearly $23 million budget.
Arvay’s annual salary will be $130,000.
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